No S#!t!!! We have a distributor here who sells those and about twenty other Washington wineries and their average WHOLESALE price is $30 per bottle on their reds.....Makes me want to get an Afrikans-English Dictionary and take that SA wine tour, Roberto

You guys are preaching to the choir. My dollars go to the Rhone, Southern France, Loire, and Germany for quality/value wines. They are to be had from Italy as well, but I just don't have a palate for Italian wines. It drives my wine friends crazy that I don't like Italian wines that they are ranting over. One exception is Pinot Grigio. It must be a genetic thing.

Hedges has been the one constant in my cellar. Their 92 RM is driving the few wine geeks I allow in my house up the wall. They've identified it as everything from a 89 Paullic to a 91 Caymus SS. hehe WW

As I said, ww, Hedges is a consistently good producer, but I am not as rich as you carpetbaggers (whaddapun!). More importantly, I hate the direction taken on the Left Coast, which is to produce wines only for those whose income allows for three cleaning ladies, a butler and seven expensive dogs (or is that wives/husbands).

Guys like Roberto and me truly want people, all people to have access to the stuff, and we want it to be good stuff too. And then more people will drink wine and then my income will rise so that I could have all that domestice help--or seven wives.

Bucko, if you do not appreciate Italian wine your genes must have been passed along by a nasty group of invaders on the peninsula in the third and fourth centuries. And all along I thought you had taste...

Reminds me of the time Drew was late for a wine tasting, speeding down the highway, ignoring the flashing lights behind him. The highway patrol finally pulled him over. The highpo told him "I'm just getting off from work and don't need the paper shuffle. Give me a good excuse why you were speeding and I'll let you go." Drewski replied "Well, my wife ran off with a highway patrolman 3 years ago. I thought you were trying to bring her back!"

Aside from the fact that I'm pretty sure I've sold some italian wine to three out of four of you, saying "I don't like Italian Wine" is like saying "I don't like Indian food" or "I don't like African music": each category is so incredibly diverse that generalizations are simply inoperative.....

Did some research, and have to admit that I can't find anything nice that Bucko has said about Italian Wine. He did say he liked some Italian varieties grown in CA such as barbera. He recently recommended a $25 CA Barbera to go with spaghetti. On one occasion he backed up a recommendation of mine to a guy who couldn't find any Greek wine to go with Greek food, where we recommended Chianti. Have to admit, he didn't say he'd drink it himself.

I have tried about 250 Italian wines, to include old Barolos, Nebbiolos, Chiantis, and Pinot Griggios. I can count on one hand the number that I would go purchase. The ones that I have liked were criticized by my friends as being most atypical. Drives my wine friends crazy -- they don't even try anymore. I'm sure it is me, not the wines. Like I said, it has to be a receptor thing. My receptors ring up a big "Does not register" when it comes to these wines.

Ok, we've established you do not like high acid Northwestern wines. What about a big, soft, smokey Lagrein or a monster Primitivo di Manduria or a silky Ripasso Valpo (each one totaly different one from another and from Chianti and Barolo)????

Nah, we never give up. We are not above resorting to Terry Theise's tactics of pouring exactly the same wine into different bottles with different labels and watching people say "Oh, I like the Cabernet so much better than the Montepulciano, it's softer and not acidic, and you just can't get good wine for $5.99, you know" when BOTH glasses are the six dollar Montepulciano. And, just as Terry often points out at his consumer tastings that the best Chardonnays come from the town of Reisling so you should always look for that on the label, we are constantly enlightening people as to the wonderfully food-friendly and inexpensive Merlots grown in Barbera and Ripasso......